This is a fine new gastroenterology text, offering detailed and thoughtful coverage of the clinical aspects of the specialty. Its 35 authors and its editor have put a great deal of material together, including long bibliographies, and the publishers have helped them put it together into a reasonably sized book.

As soon as the reader gets into the first chapter, Wightman says that, "A good part of the competence of the gastroenterologist lies in his ability to obtain an accurate history" and that it is "important to remember that it is the patient who is under investigation and not his disease."

The overall organization follows that used by most authors and editors of gastroenterology texts—a discussion of symptoms and their meaning, specific organ pathology, more general subjects, and disease relationships between the alimentary canal and other major organ systems. The fine organization becomes rather detailed and confused at times but